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Monthly Archives: November 2009

Where do I start? I guess I could start by saying that Kwame Kilpatrick is the sorriest excuse for a Mayor the city has seen yet. Scandals in politics are not new or uncommon. In fact, I almost except them. But this guy has taken it to the next level. Controversy followed much of his time in office, which included allegations (not all against Kilpatrick himself) of marital infidelity, conspiracy, perjury, corruption and murder.

Early life, education and family

Prior to his career in politics, he graduated from Cass Technical High School. Kilpatrick then graduated with an average GPA of 2.3 from Florida A&M University with a degree in political science, and from The Detroit College of Law with a Juris Doctorate. His mother, Congresswoman Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, represents Michigan’s 13th District in the United States House of Representatives. Kilpatrick’s father, Bernard Kilpatrick, served as Chief of Staff to former Wayne County Executive Edward H. McNamara and currently operates a consulting firm called Maestro Associates of Detroit, which has been named in several federal investigations due to business practices.

Political career and controversies

Detroit’s former “hip hop mayor” as he was often called, was elected in 2002 at the age of 31, becoming the city’s youngest mayor of all time. In his first term, he was criticized for using city funds to lease a car for use by his family and using his city issued credit card to charge thousands of dollars worth of spa massages, extravagant dining, and expensive wines. Kilpatrick would later pay back $9000 of the $210,000 credit card charges, less than 5% of the amount charged.

During his first term he also closed the century-old Belle Isle Zoo and Belle Isle Aquarium. The City Council overrode his funding veto for the zoo and gave it a budget of $700,000. During the 2005 election 88 percent of Detroit voters approved the reopening of the zoo. Instead Kilpatrick gave the $700,000 to his close friend Bobby Ferguson, who used it to build a chain link fence on the other side of the island.

By April 2005, Kilpatrick’s approval rating in Detroit was sharply declining due to the scandals and a lack of improvement in the city. As a result, the April 17, 2005 issue of Time Magazine listed him as one of the three worst big-city mayors in the United States, along with Dick Murphy of San Diego and John F. Street of Philadelphia.

In May 2005, the Detroit Free Press reported that over the first 33 months of his term, Kilpatrick had charged over $210,000 on his city-issued credit card for travel, meals, and entertainment. Later that month at a campaign rally, Kilpatrick’s father, Bernard “Killer” Kilpatrick, made controversial statements equating recent media reports about his son to Nazi propaganda that led to the the Holocaust in Europe. He later apologized.

Kilpatrick and his opponent Freman Hendrix, both Democrats, initially claimed victory but as the votes were tallied, it became clear that Kilpatrick had come back from his stretch of unpopularity to win a second term in office. Only three months prior to that, most commentators declared his political career over after he was the first incumbent mayor of Detroit to come in second in a primary. Pre-election opinion polls predicted a large win for Hendrix; however, Kilpatrick won with 53 percent of the vote. It should be noted that Kilpatrick’s re-election had a great deal of controversy, with nursing home workers claiming that Kilpatrick campaign workers came into the homes and “helped” elderly voters with Alzheimer’s “fill-out” their ballots.
Alleged incidents of mayoral misconduct

Kilpatrick’s controversies started from a wild party alleged to have occurred in the fall of 2002, involving strippers at the official residence of the mayor—the city-owned Manoogian Mansion. It is alleged by former members of the mayor’s Executive Protection Unit that the mayor’s wife, Carlita Kilpatrick, came home unexpectedly and upon discovering Kwame with the strippers began to attack one of the women. Allegations began to surface after Officer Harold C. Nelthrope contacted the internal affairs unit of the Detroit Police in April 2003 to have them investigate abuses by the mayor’s Executive Protection Unit (EPU). Mayor Kilpatrick denied all allegations and rumors of any misconduct by him or his security team. An investigation by Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox and the Michigan State Police found no evidence that the party actually happened, though the State Police investigation had been cut short. Nelthrope and Gary A. Brown, head of the Detroit Police Department’s internal affairs unit allege that they were fired by the administration in retaliation for investigating the Mayor and other superiors. Nelthrope and Brown filed a whistleblower lawsuit and were awarded an $8.4 million-dollar settlement.

Then there was Tamara Greene, a 27-year-old exotic dancer who went by the name “Strawberry”, and who allegedly performed at the 2002 Manoogian Mansion party, where she was allegedly assaulted by the mayor’s wife, Carlita.

In April 2003, while sitting in her car with her boyfriend, Greene was shot multiple times with a .40 caliber Glock pistol. Although an official statement by Detroit Police Department claims that Ms. Greene was shot three times, sources from the department’s Homicide Division claimed that she was shot 18 times. Her boyfriend was wounded when the white Chevrolet TrailBlazer driven by the shooter or shooters made a second pass. This fact led Bowman to conclude that Greene was the intended target and not her 32-year-old boyfriend. She was murdered on April 30, 2003, at around 3:40 AM, near the intersection of Roselawn and West Outer Drive. Her murder came after a first attempt on her life failed. This led to the theory that this was a “deliberate hit” by a member of the Detroit Police Department, a theory that Bowman would investigate. He alleged his investigation was the reason that he was taken off of the case and transferred out of homicide.

Greene’s family filed a federal lawsuit against the city of Detroit for $150 million based on their belief her murder was a deliberate attack to keep her from talking to officers who were investigating the rumored party at the mayoral Manoogian Mansion. A judge ruled that Norman Yatooma, the attorney representing Greene’s 14-year-old son, could have access to text messages of Kilpatrick, police chief Ella Bully-Cummings and dozens of other city employees to ascertain if city officials blocked the investigation into Greene’s murder. Yatooma also wanted the text messages and GPS positions of every city employee exchanged between 1:30 a.m. and 5:30 a.m. on April 30, 2003. The city’s communications provider Skytel indicated it was prepared to release the text messages if the court ruled accordingly.

The lawyers for the city paid a retainer of $24,950 to the lawyers it hired to represent the city. City policy mandates that contracts $25,000 or more be approved by the city council. Councilwoman Sheila Cockrel asserted that the amount paid “is small for a retainer” and “I think this is probably somebody’s effort to get a deposit to a lawyer on an expedited basis in a case that’s got a lot of scrutiny.” This was at least the second time the Kilpatrick administration has avoided council approval by entering into contracts just below the $25,000 threshold: the Lincoln Navigator SUV leased for the Kilpatrick family in 2005 with city funds cost $24,995.

On March 1, 2008, a ten page sworn affidavit by former Detroit police lieutenant Alvin Bowman was filed by Yatooma in the U.S District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. In that affidavit, Bowman states that “I suspected that the shooter was a law enforcement officer, and more specifically, a Detroit Police Department officer.” Bowman contended that the high number of .40 caliber bullets that hit Greene but not her boyfriend would indicate that the shooter had firearms training. In the document, Bowman explains how the highest levels of the police department, including then-police chief Jerry Oliver and his successor, Ella Bully-Cummings, deliberately sabotaged his investigation. He claims that files were deleted from homicide computers, reports were removed from the homicide file, and the Greene murder file itself was locked up so Bowman could not access it. Bowman states that eventually he was transferred out of homicide because he had asked too many questions about the Greene murder and the Manoogian Mansion party. In the affidavit, Bowman says that Greene was employed with an associate of Kilpatrick, but did not name the associate. Bowman also stated that Greene’s telephone records linked her to a high-ranking city employee not long before her April 2003 death.

In another sworn affidavit, Joyce Carolyn Rogers, a former employee for the Detroit Police Department, stated that she read a police report that came across her desk in the fall 2002 which involved the mayor’s wife, Carlita Kilpatrick, assaulting Greene during the alleged Manoogian Mansion party. Rogers stated in the affidavit that Carlita had witnessed Greene touching the mayor “in a manner that upset the mayor’s wife.”

Rogers’ affidavit said that Carlita Kilpatrick left the room and came back with a wooden object and began assaulting Greene; two other men then stepped in to restrain the mayor’s wife. Norman Yatooma, attorney for the Greene family, said that this new sworn affidavit shows that the Manoogian party was not “urban legend.”
Text-messaging scandal

In January 2008, The Detroit Free Press examined and revealed the existence of more than 14,000 text messages exchanged between Kilpatrick and his chief of staff Christine Beatty on their city issued SkyTel pagers between September 2002 – October 2002 and April 2003 – May 2003. The dates are of importance because they encompass the time periods of the alleged Manoogian Mansion party and the ouster of Gary Brown respectively.

The text-messages are the nucleus of an $8.4 million secret deal settlement by the city of Detroit. The attorneys for the city had tried since 2004 to keep the text messages hidden on the basis that they were personal and private communications. However, a city directive re-authorized by Kilpatrick during his first term as mayor indicates that all electronic communication sent on city equipment should be “used in an honest, ethical, and legal manner” and cautions, “is not considered to be personal or private.” The mayor’s spokesman said the policy only applies to city-owned equipment and the text-messages are exempt since they were sent on a city-leased device.

Kilpatrick and Beatty, both married at the time, did discuss city business; however, many of the series of messages describe not a professional relationship but an extramarital sexual relationship between the two, often in graphic detail. The text messages further describe their use of city funds to arrange romantic getaways, their fears of being caught by the mayor’s police protection unit, and evidence the pair conspired to fire Detroit Police Deputy Chief Gary Brown.

The exchanges also show their knowledge of ‘fronts’ in the bidding process and preferential treatment to close friend and businessman Bobby Ferguson. Text messages exchanged between Beatty and Ferguson show Ferguson requested and was given access to other contractors’ bids, proposals and rates in order to undercut them, and ultimately secured over $45 million in city contracts. This preferential treatment in the Kilpatrick administration has come to be known as the ‘Friends and Family Plan.’

On March 18, 2008, the Detroit City Council passed a non-binding resolution asking for Kilpatrick to resign as mayor. The vote was 7–1 with Monica Conyers being the only member to vote no. Martha Reeves was absent from the vote. The resolution cited 33 reasons for Kilpatrick to step down as mayor; reasons ranging from the secret settlement deals, to mandatory audits not being submitted to the state, to charges that Kilpatrick “repeatedly obfuscates the truth.” It was in effect a vote of no confidence in Kilpatrick and his administration. Kilpatrick has dismissed the vote as irrelevant and he declared that he would not resign as mayor. While this was a non-binding resolution, the council did ask its independent attorney, Bill Goodman, to “explore the proceedings by which the mayor may be removed from office” if Kilpatrick stands by his promise not to resign.

On March 26, 2008, the Detroit Free Press published another text message that clearly contradicts Kilpatrick’s testimony that Deputy Police Chief Gary Brown’s employment was not terminated, but that he was ‘unappointed’. In June 2003, six weeks after Brown’s employment with the Detroit Police Department ended and just hours before Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox was to announce the findings of his office’s investigation into Kilpatrick’s security team’s misconduct, the Manoogian Mansion party and the firing of Brown, Kwame Kilpatrick texted his staff the following on June 24, 2003:

“We must answer the question? Why was Gary Brown fired, It will be asked, I need short, powerful answer. … I just need a good answer whatever it might be.”

On the stand in the whistleblower trial, Kilpatrick stated that Brown was ‘unappointed’ from his duties as Deputy Police Chief and head of the department’s internal affairs unit. The jury in that trial found in favor of Brown’s account that he was fired and not ‘unappointed’.

The bulk of the text messages were released in late October 2008 by Circuit Court Judge Timothy Kenny. He instructed that some portions of the text messages be redacted. PDF files of the edited text messages can be read through this link:

Criminal charges

On March 24, 2008, Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy announced a 12-count criminal indictment against Kilpatrick and former Detroit Chief of Staff Christine Beatty, charging Kilpatrick with eight felonies and Beatty with seven. Charges for both included perjury, misconduct in office and obstruction of justice. Worthy also suggested that others in the Kilpatrick administration could also be charged. The preliminary examination scheduled for September 22, 2008, was waived by both defendants; thereby, allowing the case to proceed directly to trial.

In March 2008, a group of Kilpatrick’s supporters created the “Detroit Justice Fund” to help cover the cost of the mayor’s legal defense. Members of the fund’s supervisory committee include former San Francisco mayor Willie Brown and former DTE executive Martin Taylor. Greg Mathis, a retired District Court judge and television personality was listed as a committee member, but disavowed any such support and has since called for Kilpatrick to resign.

WXYZ-TV reported that on July 23, 2008, Kilpatrick briefly traveled to the neighboring city of Windsor, Ontario, thus leaving Michigan and the US. Kilpatrick met with Windsor mayor Eddie Francis concerning a deal on the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel, which would have seen the city of Windsor take over operational control of the tunnel in exchange for a $75 million loan to the cash-strapped city of Detroit. While Kilpatrick claimed that Francis had requested the meeting without prior notice, several Windsor city officials, including Francis, claimed that Kilpatrick in fact requested the meeting. Kilpatrick traveled without informing the court, as required by terms of his bail agreement. As a result, on August 7, 2008, Kilpatrick was remanded to spend a night in the Wayne County Jail. It was the first time in Detroit’s history that its mayor had been ordered to jail. In issuing the order, Chief Judge Ronald Giles stated that he could not treat the mayor differently than he did “John Sixpack.” On August 8, 2008, Judge Thomas Jackson reversed the remand order and permitted Kilpatrick to be released on posting a $50,000 cash bond and the further condition that the mayor not travel, and wear a tethering device.

On August 8, 2008, Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox announced that two new felony counts had been filed against Kilpatrick for assaulting or interfering with a law officer. The new charges arose out of allegations that Kilpatrick on July 24, 2008, shoved a police officer who was attempting to serve a subpoena on an associate of the mayor. The second felony account arose out of allegations that a second officer was struck when the first officer was shoved into a woman police officer who was accompanying the first officer.

On September 4, 2008, Kwame Kilpatrick pled guilty to two felony counts of obstruction of justice and plead no contest to assaulting a Wayne County Sheriffs Deputy. As part of the plea agreement, he agreed to serve four months in the Wayne County Jail, pay one million dollars of restitution to the city of Detroit, surrender his license to practice law, five years probation and not run for public office during his probation period. He also was required to submit his resignation as mayor of Detroit and surrender his state of Michigan pension from his six years service as a legislator in the Michigan House of Representatives prior to being elected mayor. His last day in office was September 18, 2008. During his plea, Kilpatrick stated that he lied under oath several times.

Kilpatrick Civic Fund

On May 8, 2007, WXYZ-TV reported that Kilpatrick used $8,600 from his secret Kilpatrick Civic Fund to take his wife, three sons and babysitter on a week long vacation to a five-star California resort, the La Costa Resort and Spa. The fund, controlled by Kilpatrick’s sister and friends, was created to improve the city of Detroit through voter education, economic empowerment and crime prevention. Tax and accounting experts said Kilpatrick’s use of the fund was a violation of IRS regulations. The story was also compounded after WXYZ’s cameras caught Kilpatrick in a fit of rage grabbing the microphone out of the hand of reporter Ray Sayah and throwing it.

Slander suit

Kilpatrick was named in a slander lawsuit along with Christine Beatty and police chief Ella Bully-Cummings. The lawsuit was brought about by two police officers that claimed to have been slandered in the media by city officials.

The lawsuit stems from a 2004 incident in which the two police officers pulled over Kilpatrick’s chief of staff Christine Beatty for speeding. Beatty was irate at being stopped and bluntly asked the officers, “Do you know who the fuck I am?” when the officers came to the vehicle. While stopped, Beatty called Police Chief Bully-Cummings to have the officers called off, which the officers allege they were ordered to do. When reports of the incident started to surface in the media, Kilpatrick, Beatty and Bully-Cummings all claimed that the traffic stop was some type of “set-up” to harass Beatty.

The parties in the law suit entered into mediation which recommended a settlement of $25,000 which was rejected twice by the Detroit City Council.

In January 2008, it was revealed through text messages that Kilpatrick and Beatty were involved in a sexual relationship that both denied under oath. The attorney for the officers said

“I might take a different position on the case now. The mayor has been exposed and I may want more money for my clients now.”

On February 19, 2008, the Detroit City Council voted unanimously to settle the lawsuit for $25,000. The attorney for the officers accepted the settlement and said of the officers, “They don’t want to be embroiled in this whole scandal.”

Recall campaign

The Wayne County Election Committee approved a recall petition to remove Kilpatrick as mayor based on the multi-million dollar settlement ($9,000,000+) in a whistle-blower lawsuit against the city, and the accusation that Kilpatrick misled the City Council into approving the settlement. The recall petition was filed by Douglas Johnson, a city council candidate. Kilpatrick has appealed to the commission to reconsider its decision on the grounds that Johnson is not a resident of Detroit. Johnson also requested that Jennifer Granholm use her power as Governor to remove Kilpatrick from office.

On March 12, 2008, at the request of the Mayor’s office, Wayne County Election Commission rescinded its earlier approval for the recall. The Mayor’s office argued that there was not any evidence that the organizer, Douglas Johnson, actually resided within the city limits of Detroit. Johnson stated that his group would refile using another person whose residency would not be an issue. On March 27, 2008, a second recall petition was filed against Kilpatrick by Angelo Brown. Brown stated in his filing that Kilpatrick is too preoccupied with his legal problems to be effective. Kilpatrick’s spokesman James Canning again dismissed this latest recall by saying: “It’s Mr. Brown’s right to file a petition, but it’s just another effort by a political hopeful to grab headlines.”

On May 14 the Detroit City Council voted to request that the governor of Michigan, Jennifer Granholm, remove Kilpatrick from office.

Funneling of state grant money to wife

Kilpatrick used his influence while in the Michigan legislature to funnel state grant money to two organizations that were vague on their project description. The groups were run by friends of Kilpatrick and both agreed to subcontract work to U.N.I.T.E., a company owned by Kilpatrick’s wife Carlita. Carlita was the only employee and the firm received $175,000 from the organizations. Detroit 3D was one of the groups and the State canceled its second and final installment of $250,000 because 3D refused to divulge details on how the funds were being spent.[73]

Denial of courtesy protection

Since 2002, the Washington D.C. police will only offer professional courtesy protection to Kilpatrick while he is conducting official business in the nation’s capital. Washington police no longer provide after-hours police protection to Kilpatrick because of his inappropriate partying during past visits. Sergeant Tyrone Dodson of Washington explained by saying “we arrived at this decision because we felt that the late evening partying on the part of Mayor Kilpatrick would leave our officers stretched too thin and might result in an incident at one of the clubs.” The Kilpatrick administration allege that the statements and actions of the Washington police are part in a political conspiracy to ruin the mayor.

Preferential hiring of friends and family

It was revealed that at any given time there are about 100 appointees of Kilpatrick employed with the city. The Detroit Free Press examined city records and found that 29 of Kilpatrick’s closest friends and family were appointed to positions within the various city departments. This hiring practice came to be known as ‘the friends and family plan’. Some appointees had little to no experience, while others, among them Kilpatrick’s uncle Ray Cheeks and cousin Nneka Cheeks, falsified their résumés. Kilpatrick’s cousin, Patricia Peoples, was appointed to the deputy director of human resources, giving her the ability to hire more of Kilpatrick’s friends and family without it being viewed as a mayoral appointment. Though political appointments are not illegal, the sheer volume of Kilpatrick’s appointments compared to all the appointments made by Detroit mayors since 1970, along with Kilpatrick’s cutting of thousands of city jobs, make his appointments controversial.

The jobs held by friends and family range from secretarial positions to department heads. The appointees had an average salary increase of 36% compared with a 2% raise in 2003 and 2% raise in 2004 for fellow city workers. Some of the biggest salary increases were for April Edgar, half-sister of Christine Beatty, whose pay increase was 86% over 5 years. One of Kilpatrick’s cousins, Ajene Evans, had a 77% increase in his salary same period. The biggest salary increase among the 29 appointees was that of LaTonya Wallace-Hardiman who went from $32,500 staff secretary, to an executive assistant making $85,501—163% in five years.

The city has laid off more than 4,000 city workers and more than 1,000 police officers since Kilpatrick’s first term. None of Kilpatrick’s friends or family have been laid off.

Abuse of power allegations

It was revealed on July 15, 2008, by WXYZ reporter Steve Wilson, that in 2005 Kwame Kilpatrick, Christine Beatty, and the chief of police Ella Bully-Cummings allegedly used their positions to help an influential Baptist minister arrested for soliciting a prostitute to have the case dismissed. The arresting officer, Antoinette Bostic was told by her supervisors that Mangedwa Nyathi was a minister (Assistant Pastor at Hartford Memorial Baptist Church on Detroit’s west side) and that the mayor and the chief were calling them to get Bostic not to show up to court; thereby the judge would be forced to dismiss the case against Nyathi. Bostic ignored her supervisors and appeared in court. The defense lawyer, Charles Hammons, had the case postponed a couple of times and stated in court that “The mayor told me yesterday that this case is not gonna go forward”. Hammons admitted to Wilson that this was the fact and that this was how many cases for people who know the mayor in Detroit are handled. Bully-Cummings angrily denied that she had ever asked her officers to perform such acts of impropriety. Kilpatrick stated that Wilson of WXYZ “was just making up stories again”.

Assaulting a police officer

On July 24, 2008, at approximately 4 pm, Wayne County Sheriff’s Detective Brian White and Joanne Kinney, an investigator from Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy’s office, went to Kilpatrick’s sister Ayanna Kilpatrick’s home in an attempt to serve a subpoena on Bobby Ferguson. Ayanna Kilpatrick is married to Daniel Ferguson, Bobby’s cousin. While on the front porch of the home, Kwame Kilpatrick came out of the house with his bodyguards and pushed the sheriff’s deputy, as Sheriff Warren Evans said, “…pushed him with significant force to make him bounce into the prosecutor’s investigator”. The mayor yelled at Kinney “How can a black woman be riding in a car with a man named White?” Evans went on to say, “There were armed executive protection officers. My officers were there armed. And all of them had the consummate good sense not to let it escalate”…and “the two officers ‘wisely’ left the property and returned to their office to report on the incident.”

Sheriff Evans stated that due to the “politically charged nature” of the incident, the case has been transferred to the Michigan State Police to investigate. Evans’ daughter, who was on Kwame Kilpatrick’s staff, resigned shortly after this incident.

FBI corruption investigation of Kilpatrick family and friends

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has been investigating corruption within Detroit’s city hall; in particular, how contracts are awarded. Through the use of undercover video, wiretaps, and informants, the FBI is trying to determine if Bernard Kilpatrick, father of Kwame Kilpatrick and ex-husband of U.S. congresswoman Carolyn Cheeks-Kilpatrick, was involved in payoff schemes to steer city business to contractors and then illegally funnel any money or kickbacks back to his son, the mayor. The FBI also announced that Derrick Miller, a close friend of Kilpatrick’s who was a top adviser in the Kilpatrick campaigns and most recently (2007) was the chief information officer of the City of Detroit, was named as a target of the corruption investigation.

Resignation

On March 24, 2008, Kilpatrick was charged with eight felony counts, including perjury, misconduct in office, and obstruction of justice. On May 13, 2008, the Detroit City Council approved a resolution to request that Michigan’s governor, Jennifer Granholm, remove Kilpatrick from office. On August 8, 2008, Michigan’s Attorney General, Mike Cox, announced two new felony counts had been filed against Kilpatrick for assaulting and interfering with a law officer.

On September 4, 2008, Kilpatrick announced his resignation as mayor, effective September 18, following a guilty plea to two felonies for obstruction of justice arising from a complex settlement scheme in a civil case where he lied about an extra-marital affair under oath, then caused the case to be settled at a premium in exchange for an agreement by the parties not to disclose his affair. He then misrepresented the settlement to the citizens of Detroit and City Council. As a result of his guilty plea, Kilpatrick will pay restitution to the city of Detroit in the amount of one million dollars, lose his pension, serve four months in the Wayne County jail, serve five years probation, and surrender his law license; and is prohibited from running for public office for five years.

In the separate assault case, he pled no contest to one felony count of assaulting and obstructing a police officer in exchange for a second assault charge being dropped. This deal also required his resignation and 120 days in jail, to be served concurrently with his jail time for the perjury counts. Kilpatrick was sentenced on October 28, 2008. The judge ordered that Kilpatrick not be given an opportunity for early release, but instead serve the entire 120 days in jail.

Detroit City Council President Kenneth Cockrel, Jr. replaced Kilpatrick as mayor at 12:01am September 19, 2008.

Sentencing and imprisonment

Judge David Groner sentenced former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick to four months in jail Tuesday, October 28, 2008, for the sex-and-text scandal, calling him “arrogant and defiant” and questioning the sincerity of a guilty plea that ended his career at City Hall. The punishment was part of a plea agreement worked out a month earlier. “When someone gets 120 days in jail, they should get 120 days in jail,” Groner said. Kilpatrick also was given a 120-day concurrent sentence for assaulting a sheriff’s officer who was trying to deliver a subpoena in July. He was seen smirking, laughing, and even calling the sentencing a “joke”. Wayne County Sheriff Warren Evans said that they take 40,000 prisoners into the prison annually, but that Kilpatrick would be kept separate from the general population and “won’t be treated any worse or any better than other prisoners.” He was housed in a secured, 15 feet by 10 feet cell with a bed, chair, toilet and a shower, spending approximately 23 hours a day there. At 12:35 a.m. on Tuesday, February 3, 2009, Kilpatrick left his jail after serving 99 days. He boarded a privately chartered Lear jet rumored to cost $30,000 and landed in Texas that evening. He was supposed to join his family in a $3,000 a month rental house in Southlake, Texas.

Within a couple of weeks, Mr. Kilpatrick had been offered and accepted a job at Covisint, a subsidiary of Compuware, which happens to be headquartered in Detroit.

The final numbers are out for this year’s Devil’s Night(which the city is trying to call Angel’s Night from now on): 119 fires in the 3 day Devil’s Night period. This is down 12% from last years total of 136 fires. The effort can be accredited to the Detroit Fire and Police departments, Department Of Homeland Security, and 30,000 individual volunteers, compared to over 50,000 volunteers last year.

It amazes me that there are still those who wish to destroy the city they live in, and then criticize people like me for filming it and posting it to the internet. The finger should be pointed at those destroying the city, not filming it… am I right?